Thanks, all. I tried it for a few minutes and the big hens were fine but the rooster really went after them, so I separated them. I don't have the set up for two permanent pens and coops, but I set up a makeshift coop and pen next to the big pen so they can all "talk" through the chain link...
I have four two-month-old pullets. They are fully feathered and have been out in a wire cage inside the main coop for almost two weeks...I just couldn't stand them in the house any more. They are about 1/4 the size of my grown pullets (ranging in age from 1 to 5 years) and I do have a big...
I'm looking to add 4 - 5 EE chicks or pullets to my small flock. I REALLY want blue or green eggs. I'd rather not have them shipped, I'd like to pick them up so looking in SE Nebraska. Thank you!
I use vinegar on thistles and other weeds. I'm a beekeeper as well as chicken keeper so I don't use chemicals and the vinegar does not bother either of them. I buy the cheap white vinegar at walmart and go around in the spring and pour a few "glugs" on the thistles that are just emerging and...
I've had great luck buying pullets from breeders on craigslist. Two years ago I did spring for some juvenile hens from McMurray Hatchery and we've been VERY pleased with them. They arrived in great shape and are fantastic layers. Expensive, but nice to get pullets that started laying right away.
I have one hen, of 13, who is almost naked. She is not molting, I have seen that before. I see no bugs on her, non in the coop. I sprinkle w/ DE frequently. Her whole bottom is totally bare, the side of her neck (which might be from the rooster) and, of course, her back (again, probably from...
We've always had a bloody egg every now and then, but lately there's a couple every day - pretty bloody, too. Why does this happen? We have a rooster, the hens are all healthy, though they have been confined for several weeks to the coop and pen due to several feet of snow in and around the pen.
Thanks, crazyhen, that helps a lot. There ARE porcupine quills around her neck. My farrier made me nervous today when he suggested that she should molt in the spring, but I had heard from this board that they molt in the fall. Poor thing, she looks totally nekked. She seems happy and healthy...
One of my three-year-old hens looks like somebody has been plucking her. She looks naked! Tail feathers essentially gone, all scraggly looking on her body. Is this molt?
I'd like to add a few more pullets to my small flock - breed isn't really a factor, but a good laying breed would be nice. I have white and brown leghorns so brown egg layers would be nice, too. But, that said, any pullets will do. Thank you!
Oh my gosh, our Jack Russell Terrier, Ruby, got out of the yard (she's never out in the fenced yard alone because she's a rescued dog and quite unpredictable, she just snuck out through the gate when I ran through to grab our new big puppy who hurled himself over the fence) and went after the...
I had one rooster and four 2.5 year old hens. This week I added four hens, after a quarantine period and after a period of them being next to each other in different pens. I have a coop with attached run. I have had them in the coop/run together for four days. They are all shut into the coop...
Okay, this August I got four brown Leghorn hens that were supposedly one year old, from the spring of 2007. They took about three weeks and then we started getting 1-2 eggs a day, about five days a week.
Around the middle of October, they stopped completely. Not one egg since then.
We feed...
I got four hens exactly four weeks ago and over the four weeks we've only gotten about a dozen eggs. The most we've ever had in one day was two eggs. The woman I got them from swore up and down they were born in the spring of 2007 and her best layers. They are brown leghorns that lay white...
Are you still getting eggs regularly? We're not - just every now and then and it's been a month! I'm starting to wonder if I should have trusted the person who sold me these hens! I guess there's nothing I can do now because I don't have room for more chickens even if I got baby chicks...I...
Debiraymond - got an egg yesterday. We have at least one afternoon layer. Thanks for sharing about your chicken coop - I was sure it was the size of the coop that was causing them not to lay. We're building a slightly bigger one this weekend, anyway, because ours won't really protect them too...
My hopes were probably set too high. Maybe I got bamboozled, the woman I got them from said that her leghorns laid about 300 days per year. Who knows. At this point, I'd be happy for 8-12 eggs a week from my four hens!
Kinnip - we have two baby Nubian goats who live in our backyard (at night they have a pen in the barn) and they're always up on our wrap around porch. They get up on the table that's on the porch and scream into the kitchen window. They poop all over the porch and the table and it drives my...
Can I whine with you? Our hens have been here for over two weeks. I'm so bummed. We've gotten about 8 eggs over the two weeks. The coop I built for them is in a former dog kennel, ala Mother Earth News, with two nesting boxes and a roost. I'm convinced it's the coop so we're building a...